What to muse about today?

Santa made an early visit to our house today. Twice. Once by airmail, and the second by firetruck! Thanks to the local fire department.

We let the girls open their presents from their Nana and Aunt Em this morning. Topsy Turvy dolls that Nana had hand knit along with a personalized knit ornament for the tree and a book to match their doll. They both LOVED them and didn’t put the dolls down for the rest of the day. Each asked for their book to be read at bedtime.

Later this afternoon, after some quiet time, we heard a siren outside. We all got up to see what was up, and they saw the truck come down and around the corner. At first they had no idea what was going on, we usually don’t get firetrucks on our road. Once they saw Santa get out they got excited, totally surprised. They were still a bit curious. They knew it wasn’t Christmas yet. It hadn’t even been LaLa’s birthday yet.

Santa!

Thankfully they were super polite as Santa came up and told them he was doing an early delivery today, and asked if they wanted a present. Both said “yes, please” with no prompting. Almost no prompting. Ashlin started her excited jump, but was able to stand still long enough for a candy cane and a picture. Notice, there is much less fear on her face than the last time she sat with Santa. Yay!

Stu and I hustled them in as the truck drove away, they were so eager to open their presents. The Santa ones. Watching their joy as they ripped off the wrapping paper was worth the small fee to have the special delivery. Ashlin was able to get her present unwrapped first and her head exploded. Rainbow Dash pajamas with a hood with ears and a rainbow mane. They’re footie pj’s without the feet, one piece with a zip. We got “I love them!” from both girls, and “this is the best day ever” – over and over – from Ashlin. Neither girl could wait for bedtime to put them on.

It feels as if I was just here, writing about Teagan losing her first tooth. But no, it’s been four months. To the day. Crazy. Teagan has now lost a total of four teeth. Just in time, too. She’s already learned the required song.

She lost the other top tooth about two months ago, and we still don’t see any sign of the adult one coming in. For awhile, the top and bottom were missing and she looked like she had a coin slot in her mouth. Also, the tooth fairy is out of (affordable) pirate Lego sets to leave.

Her reading skills have leaped forward, she’s almost able to read books – she can read a few of the pages from Fortunately, The Milk – which is a pretty cool book.

Oh, and she’s earned her white belt in Taekwondo. And her first trophy.

Ashlin is gearing up for Kindergarten. Already. She’s started with Raz-Kids, and can identify some of her sight words. Yes, the four-year-old has sight words. Also, she’s super jealous of her sister and the tooth fairy visits.

Also! She was brave enough to go up and take a picture with Santa. She’s not super happy about it, but she did it. Twice. She was super excited when we saw Santa walking on the street after the town’s tree lighting that she couldn’t stay still. The blur is Ashlin. Teagan was so full of awe when he stopped to chat with her, you could see the pure amazement and joy on her face.

In just about a month, give or take, I finished my afghan. The body was done last Wednesday, and the edging took three days, once I figured out what to do. Very happy with how it turned out, and how lovely it looks on the sofa!

And it’s snuggly warm, and goes well with the sleepy sofas… I fell asleep last night before I could read mail and blog about being done!

Almost all…

Because it’s hard not to find flaws with our work, even work that we’re very please with, I have a few with the afghan. Looking at the full blanket on a table, I see that I probably should have blocked it before starting the border. It’s not completely flat in the picture, but you can see the dip. It’s not too bad, but it pulls in a little, just off square. A little shaping is all it needs, and I could probably still do that.

Dream Weaver…

I think it took three days to weave in all the ends. I wish there was an easier way to do that. I suppose I could have tried to work the spare colors up the side, like I did with one of my friend’s baskets. The baskets that I gave my friend for Christmas, that I haven’t blogged about yet. I promise to write that up soon!

Flattening the bumps

Then I needed to flatten out the ripply edge. I worked up a test piece to try out a few things, and the easiest one worked – double, half-double, single crochet with a slip stitch, repeat.

Close-Up

For the border, I ended up picking something simple, but interesting. Once the white foundation was done, and then one round of light brown in half-double crochet, I did a chain with single crochet motif in white, then double crochet in each stitch/space in green. Second time around was white with the dark brown on top. I finished with a final round of half-double crochet in brown to make a solid edge.

I’m really quite pleased with it. I may have mentioned already.

While I’ve been finishing up the afghan, I had an anniversary:

Happy Anniversary!

I’ve been on WordPress for four years now! I can’t believe it’s been that long since I migrated my blog from Yahoo!360. Although I started blogging over there back in November of 2005, I knew I had to move when the site started getting funky, eating posts and basically being unreliable. After a bit of research (thanks Stu!), I moved here. I’ve never had any of those problems here, thankfully!

Friday I dropped off the scarf that I crocheted for a student from Sandy Hook. Some generous person or company donated green and white yarn for knitters and crocheters to make scarves, to make something comforting and snuggly.

I wasn’t sure at first what to do. It was almost like the simple scarf was too big a task. Friends made a few suggestions, one being a scarf with pockets on the ends. Then I found a pattern to make the scarf look like an alligator.

Half Way There

I kept going Google image searches looking for something that really called to me. Eventually I found this pattern. A stitch called an Angel Stitch. Perfect.

It’s a variation of a puff stitch, one I hadn’t done before. I printed out the directions and took my yarn up with me at Christmas. By then, I was just about finished all the pressing projects and could devote a bit of time to this one. I could not work out the stitch from the printed instructions at all. I kept trying, doing a few rows, but they never worked. Again, and again, I would pull out the stitches. It was so frustrating not to understand the words. I knew what she was describing, but my stitches didn’t look like her images.

Sewing in Ends

Eventually, I was able to watch the video she had made, and was finally able to get the stitch to look right. I still think I have an extra yarn over after drawing up a loop, but that’s not really important, is it? The final outcome looked right – like little angels with halos.

Even with changing yarn, it worked up pretty quickly. Well, once you got a hang of drawing the hook through eight loops without dropping any or catching any stray threads. I enjoyed working the scarf. Each color band was a different width, keeping track of the second half was a little challenge, but not as bad as it could have been. I just ticked off each band as I finished the rows it needed.

A little bit of weaving in the ends and it was done. I followed the pattern’s creator and didn’t put a fringe on, though there was a little bird on my shoulder questioning if I should do something to “finish” it more formally than just tying off.

Angel Stitch for Sandy Hook

Anyway. Here it is all done, lying on the car seat as I was sitting in the car right in front of the store where they are collecting the scarves. A lovely store, and one I would love to visit again. They are doing a “Lunch and Learn” to to squares for an afghan, one square a day and then at the end, how to assemble them all. I wish I worked closer!

As I was ready to pull away, I noticed that the tree in front was yarn bombed! With Christmas decorations! Totally cool!

Today Teagan and I decorated sugar cookies. I had found a Christmas package of sprinkles, little trees and sugar. Glittery!

We didn’t make them from scratch, maybe next year. Maybe Easter. I sliced the dough up and Teagan helped pour the sprinkles on. It was fun, even though Teagan kept wanting to eat the sprinkles off the cookies, not the little pile I gave her.

I tucked the cookie cutters away for next year. I may try a different season, or no season at all, to do cookies from scratch with her. The pre-made worked very well for now, especially with a little girl with a very limited attention span.

We had an awesome Christmas, with too many presents for babies, too much good food. And snow. We had a white Christmas.

Teagan and Ashlin each got to make treats for Santa, and Teagan dictated a note for him. Ashlin did a great job making her treats, maybe better than Teagan, who just wanted to mix the ingredients all up.

We went out to celebrate LaLa’s birthday, and came back to change into Christmas pj’s, and head to bed, because of course, you need to be asleep or Santa wouldn’t come. We were hard pressed to get all the presents under the tree, and not all the stocking stuffers fit in the stockings. Some extra went into peppermint candy bags.

Teagan loved opening her presents, and as many other people’s presents as would let her. I gave her some of Ashlin’s to open, reinforcing that she was helping her sister, as Ashlin ran out of steam way before her presents ran out.

After a nap, the girls went outside to play in the snow, and Ashlin loved it. The first thing Teagan did was make a snow angel on the walkway. I ran to get my phone, but by the time I got back, Ashlin had walked through it.

The girls had a big Christmas, hopefully one that Teagan will remember. Hopefully one that will leave Ashlin with some warm fuzzy memories too.

Goofy Christmas Princess

Rudolph’s Replacement

On our way home, accidents and traffic forced us to reroute and we drove through Sandy Hook. It was heartbreaking. So many memorials, so many tributes. Luminaries. Christmas trees. Signs. Stuffed animals and flowers. Such a beautiful town to have such evil happen there. We ended up going back onto the highway before the road was clear, it was so difficult to see all the tributes. And then I snuggled my girls when we got home. I’m so glad they still like to snuggle

Snuggles on the sofa

PS. Teagan did get her copy of “The Princess and the Frog.” Ashlin is doing much, much better, though still isn’t sleeping well.

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The girls wrote letters to Santa today. Thursday morning, waiting for her flu shot appointment, Teagan and I watched “The Year Without a Santa Claus.” The picked up on the children sending letters to Santa, and when asked if she wanted to, she said she did. We didn’t get a chance until today.

So, they colored pictures for Santa. Teagan tried writing “Dear Santa” and what she wanted. She asked me to spell out the words Dear Santa, and then she wanted to write her letter, I wasn’t allowed to help.

So, this is her letter. As she formed each “letter,” she said the word she was writing. “Dear Santa, can I have The Princess and The Frog? Teagan.” She then drew a frog in the letter.

Dear Santa, Can I have a Princess and the Frog movie? Teagan

Princess and the Frog

While Teagan wrote and colored her letter to Santa, Ashlin did one too. Ashlin loves to color. And to paint. There was no keeping her from the kitchen table when she saw the paper and crayons show up. She didn’t have any pretensions of writing, she just colored, and loved coloring.

Ashlin writing her Santa letter

Dear Santa, by Ashlin

I’m not sure what’s in her letter. We do have a copy of the Princess and the Frog movie for Teagan, along with Charlotte’s Web, book and movie

These two little girls are going to get lots of hugs tonight when they get picked up. Full details of today’s tragedy aren’t yet released, but my heart hurts. It is breaking for these poor families. For their loss, by the horror of it all.

What makes someone want to do this to children? The mere thought makes it hard for me to breathe. The local news makes it hard for me to breathe.

I know that, all too often, I take my little girls for granted, their absolute love and joy, the snugglyness of them… even when they aren’t so nice, and may be oozing snot, or worse… They’re still pretty good. I love seeing how they discover the world, how they see everything in it.

I want to hear Teagan sing Frosty to me, hear Ashlin try to join in….watch them write letters to Santa, open presents on Christmas.

We let Teagan watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer last week, and she loved it. Asked LaLa to sing the song to her at bedtime, asked us to join in with her as she did a pretty good job, after only hearing it a few times. Well, over this past week, she’s gotten much better! So glad I was able to talk her into singing a version that we could tape.

She’s been surprising me again and again with how much music she knows, how many lyrics she remembers. Or thinks she remembers. Walking through Target over the weekend, I told my mom that something was crazy! Teagan replied, “call me baby!” I had no idea she had heard the song, we try so hard to shield her from the horrors of the world. What’s more, a female shopper heard her, and laughed. So Teagan sang the whole thing again. It was fun ;D

She got to go swimming Sunday, and she totally rocked the pool. According to Stu, I haven’t seen her swim yet (sniff), she jumped right in, and was off. She refused to have Stu hold her or anything, she wanted to go on her own. If you didn’t say anything, she was breathing through her nose, naturally. Stu said that when he mentioned how good that was, she breathed in a big bit of water. Still. So proud of her. Next week, I’m going to figure out how to get to the pool to see her.

She’s getting so big.

PS. I finally found the yarn I ran out of, so can finish the last Christmas present.

PPS. Ashlin has slept through the alarm for three days. We’ve only needed to wake her once, she’s gotten up herself the other two times, but it’s something! It’s better than last week!

On Friday’s Stu usually takes Teagan to day care, then will either come back and work from home or go into the office. When he comes back home, he’ll tell me about the conversation he had with Teagan while dropping her off. Sometimes, when he does have to go in, he’ll send me an e-mail of the conversation he has with Teagan, if it’s a particularly interesting or funny conversation.I love when I get those e-mails.